1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to crop processing equipment and more particularly pertains to a new apparatus for processing crop materials in a forage harvester that has a structure that minimizes the downtime of the forage harvester due to maintenance reasons.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of crop processing equipment is known in the prior art. Apparatus such as forage harvesters, such as the Jaguar self-propelled forage harvester available from the Claas of America Corporation of Columbus, Ind., include several stages of the crop material processing for shredding and chopping crop material, such as silage, into a size and condition that is suitable for use as feed for animals.
One later (and often final) stage of the crop material processing includes passing the crop material through a narrow gap between two substantially cylindrical rollers of a roller assembly. At least one, and typically both, of the rollers have teeth that function to shred and chop the crop material into pieces suitably small enough for feed. Commonly the rollers are rotating at very fast, but different, speeds to cause the shredding of the crop materials passing through the gap between the rollers and to propel the crop material along the desired path.
The roller assemblies, including structures for supporting the rollers are known. The nature of the roller assemblies, and the environment that they operate in, requires periodic removal of the roller assemblies from the forage harvester for replacement or at least re-grooving to reform the teeth. However, the support structures that have also been employed to mount the rollers in the forage harvesters have made the practice of removing and maintaining the rollers unnecessarily difficult, and also the known structures have been thought to have been undersized and insufficiently rugged, causing jamming of the crop material in the roller assembly and breakdowns that take the forage harvester out of operation during harvest time.
For example, the removal of the rollers from the support structure, which must occur when the rollers are to be replaced, typically requires movement of each of the rollers through a portion of the frame of the mounting structure, and the subsequent reinsertion of a replacement roller through the frame. This complicates the replacement process and prolongs the amount of time that the roller structure, and thus the crop processing equipment, is taken out of service.
Another significant limitation of known roller assemblies is the narrowing of the path of the crop materials through the assemblies, which can lead to increased incidences of clogging of the roller assembly. Typically, guides are employed at the lateral sides of the path to move the crop material inward toward the centers of the rollers, but this movement tends to encourage clogging of the path.
Other limitations of the known roller structures are undersized rollers, bearings, greasing systems, and shaft diameters, which also contribute to unnecessary breakdowns of the roller assemblies that can make the crop processing equipment more unreliable than they could be.
In these respects, the apparatus for processing crop materials, according to the present invention, substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus highly effective for minimizing the downtime of the forage harvester due to maintenance reasons.